


sous les lunes particulières

by sabrina_il (marina)



Category: Orphan Black (TV)
Genre: Adopted Sibling Relationship, Backstory, Canon Gay Character, Childhood, Gay Male Character, Gen, M/M, Siblings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-19
Updated: 2013-10-19
Packaged: 2017-12-29 20:35:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,398
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1009799
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/marina/pseuds/sabrina_il
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Felix is happy to be the good child.</p>
            </blockquote>





	sous les lunes particulières

**Author's Note:**

  * For [cat_77](https://archiveofourown.org/users/cat_77/gifts).



Felix is not doing very well at secondary school so far. His art teacher is the coolest woman in London, but his maths teacher is a fucking witch. She can tell when he’s reading a book under the table while she faces the blackboard and tells everyone who’s willing to listen that he’s the worst student she’s ever had. Or at least, Felix assumes she does because neither Mrs S nor his headmaster will listen to him when he tries to explain about maths being a terrible subject he hates with every fibre of his being. Instead, they keep telling him he’s not applying himself. 

There’s also the other thing. In art class he sits next to Brandon Xing, the most beautiful, exciting, brilliant, funny person he’s ever met. In maths Brandon sits way in the front and Felix sits in the back, because their fucking witch of a teacher decided that’s where he belongs. 

He doesn’t tell anyone about that, though. Not even Sarah. He doesn’t really know how to explain it - the feeling he gets like his heart can’t settle in his chest, like his fingers want to dance, like the room is suddenly filled with July instead of October - whenever he walks in and sees Brandon sitting in his usual seat, fiddling with his watercolours. 

It’s terrible and wonderful and Felix can’t breathe for a moment and it feels like that moment lasts until the class is over and Felix is out in the hallway, taking heavy breaths and hiding himself in his oversized clothing. Some of his stuff is actually Sarah’s leftovers - hats, gloves, winter coats. Even at 12 years old Sarah only liked wearing black so Mrs S reckons the clothes are suitable for Felix and won’t make other kids bully him because he’s wearing his sister’s hand-me-downs. Felix doesn’t tell her he hates black. He wishes he could have something bright blue, blindingly yellow, even neon pink. The winter is so droll and depressing and there are so many colours in his watercolour palette. 

His last class of the day is maths, of course. And he gets sent home with a note for Mrs S, again, about how his homework wasn’t done properly. He chucks the note in a bin on the way home. It’ll catch up with him eventually but he’s turning thirteen in two weeks and Mrs S has promised to let him have a party and he’s going to invite Brandon and it’s going to be wonderful and breathtaking and just thinking about having Brandon in his house - maybe, if Brandon says yes - makes Felix want to throw up a little with excitement. He’s not going to let anything jeopardize his chances right now. Worst case, if the witch demands to speak to Mrs S immediately, he can maybe convince Sarah to call her. She’s gotten good at faking Mrs S’ accent.

He comes home with a sense of trepidation. It’s stupid, but he always feels like he’s the worst liar in existence. It’s not true, he knows because he’s lied successfully to people before, more than once. Still, something in him feels panicky when he yells a hello at Mrs S sitting in the kitchen, on the way to his room. Upstairs, he’s calmer. He considers the lie while relaxing on his bed - still fully dressed but with his feet off the duvet. Tomorrow’s Friday, and the witch won’t ask him about the note until Tuesday, at least, if he’s lucky. He’ll say he gave it to his mum - he can make the lie work if he focuses, he’s sure of it. That’ll give him a few more days--

The door opens before he can finish his thought. Mrs S stands at the entrance to his room, without going in, which makes Felix sit up on his bed. It’s too early for her to call him down for tea and she usually knocks before coming in anyway. 

“Felix, love, put your coat on…” Mrs S stops once the picture of Felix still dressed in his coat and shoes sinks in. He braces himself for being told off but instead Mrs S says “Good, you’re dressed. Come downstairs, please, we have to go.”

Oh. Well, that can only mean one thing. Sarah didn’t come home last night - he saw her room, untouched, before he left for school this morning - which means she must have been found somewhere and Mrs S is going go get her. He hopes it’s the police this time, and not one of Sarah’s junkie friends. He remembers the time she ended up in hospital, how frail and tiny she looked in that bed. He’d never thought about death before that day, but seeing Sarah doped up, make up scrubbed clean, her hair all messy and disgusting… she looked scary. It made him wonder, for the first time, what his own mum might have looked like before she died. Not that he knew for sure that she was dead, but he’d decided long ago to believe that she was, because that was easier. 

He cried for days after seeing Sarah at that hospital. Mrs S never explained what had happened, exactly, only told him he was too young to ask questions like that, and Sarah came home a few days later and hugged him and made fun of him for crying, which made him make fun of her in return, and he slept much better after that. 

Downstairs Mrs S waits for him with her handbag and her umbrella at the ready. They take a bus and then the tube to get to the police station, where Felix finds two empty chairs and uses one of them to set up a space to work on his homework. He’s got an essay in English due tomorrow, but he can get out of it by telling the teacher he was too busy picking his sister up from jail. There’s maths, of course, but the witch can go fuck herself. He takes out his pencils and starts working on his art project instead. It’s not due for another week but Felix’s already half done with it. It’s supposed to be a landscape of a place he loves to visit, but he’s taking it in a more abstract direction. Mrs S used to take him and Sarah to the Tate Modern once a year, except Sarah started making a habit of losing them at the museum so they only ended up going twice. But the paintings spoke to Felix more than anything he saw on the school trips to the British Museum. 

He draws the sun with a bright yellow and then shades it with a dull orange-yellow colour it’s taken him a few tries to perfect. The sky in his drawing is green and purple and white, with the sun being broken into several pieces, faded into the tapestry of the stars. 

“Felix,” Mrs S says, and he looks up to see her standing over him. There’s a sandwich in her hand. “Eat this,” she forces him to put down his pencils and take the food. It’s ham and cheese, not particularly good but not foul either. He’s not really hungry yet, but he understands they’ll probably be at the station for a while and Mrs S wants to have him sorted so she can focus on whatever’s going on with Sarah. 

“Acceptable?” Mrs S says, as he’s chewing, and he nods. She sits with him while he eats, gets him a warm cup of tea from the thermos in her handbag. He looks at the officer sitting behind the counter, where Mrs S was filling out forms earlier. One of his pencils is the exact shade of blue of her uniform. 

“How are you doing in maths?” Mrs S says, giving her x-ray look. He doesn’t wilt, which is a huge accomplishment. 

“All right,” he says, and swallows the last of the sandwich. _I think I’m gay_ , he doesn’t say. It’s on the tip of his tongue - both because he needs to share this with someone, and because it would be a perfect distraction from his miserable maths record - but he hold back, endures Mrs S’s glance into his insides and manages to keep the facade. He can definitely keep this up until his birthday. 

“All right,” Mrs S says, getting up. “Stay here, I’ll be back soon.”

**Author's Note:**

> Title is from the poem "Mes petites amoureuses" by Rimbaud (it can be found here: http://www.press.uchicago.edu/Misc/Chicago/719774_poem2.html). According to the show creators Rimbaud is Felix's favorite poet.


End file.
